Nice Dave. Those black CDC & Elk would be perfect for the top end of a dry/dropper rig during the Grannom hatch if you have any grannom hatches in your area. Drop a Grannom Emerger or dark colored soft hackle off the bend of one of your CDC & elks and use the dry as an indicator. Grannoms are generally an early season, early morning hatch.

I like the jigged wooly buggers. Another thing you can do to keep your wooly buggers riding hook up is to tie in some lead eyes on the top of the hook shank. That's a trick I learned from dc410 here in the forum, actually.

Those weenies with the bright orange bead will definitely catch some stockers! I never thought about making an even brighter green weenie. Btw if you twist the chinelle a little more before tying in the tail on those green weenies the chinelle will twist around itself and not be an open loop.

djs, flies look good. If you are having trouble with the deer hair on your caddis. Try try this. First measure the length of your wing against your fly. Cut the deer hair butts off square. Place on top of the hook. Do 2-soft turns around then pull tight. Continue to hold hair fairly tight. do 2- more tight wraps in the same place. Then do one turn and actually pull the tread through the butts, then the next turn go completely under the butts pulling back against the tie in point of the butts. This will help stop the hair from wanting to roll around. Locks them in well. It is easier than it sounds.

GenCon wrote:djs, flies look good. If you are having trouble with the deer hair on your caddis. Try try this. First measure the length of your wing against your fly. Cut the deer hair butts off square. Place on top of the hook. Do 2-soft turns around then pull tight. Continue to hold hair fairly tight. do 2- more tight wraps in the same place. Then do one turn and actually pull the tread through the butts, then the next turn go completely under the butts pulling back against the tie in point of the butts. This will help stop the hair from wanting to roll around. Locks them in well. It is easier than it sounds.

That's the video that Heritage Angler sent me for "homework" some time ago. I keep it handy when trying to tie these. After reading Gencon's post, I think I was only doing the one soft wrap before putting pressure on the thread. Will be heading to the bench to try this again.

Got time to sit and try a half-dozen of the CDC and Elk. Much better with the two+ loose wraps. (insert head slap here). Not that I don't have a lot of work to do, but it is a improvement. Thanks for the clarification! And for taking the time to look my attempts over.

Here's another question regarding the CDC. I seem to have a problem with the feather splitting as I near completion of the wraps. Too much tension? Or could it be caused by nicking from the hook point? Note: the split seems to occur about the two-thirds mark of the wind rather than earlier. My thought is, if the nick was the cause it should happen about the half way point or slightly before. Thoughts?

djs, it is possible you may have hit the hook point. But most likely it's just the quills on the feathers you have are just dried out. Does not work well on cdc to soak them. Try this lay feather convex side down. Hold in place with one hand take other hand and lightly crease the stem with your finger nail. Do it every 1/8 inch or so. it's an old wet fly trick. It was used for tying very fragile feathers such as partridge and starling. By ading small creases in stem it softens it a bit and helps it bend around the hook while you wrap. I am guessing your feathers are fairly short. By picking through them you can often find longer feathers. By using longer feathers the quill will not be so thick and will wind on a bit easier. Hope this helps.

Haven't played with the eyes yet, but will give that a try in the future.

As to the open loop on the GW's, I just copied the samples I was given. They were effective fish-catchers, BTW.

Quote:

jeremymcon wrote:I like the jigged wooly buggers. Another thing you can do to keep your wooly buggers riding hook up is to tie in some lead eyes on the top of the hook shank. That's a trick I learned from dc410 here in the forum, actually.

Those weenies with the bright orange bead will definitely catch some stockers! I never thought about making an even brighter green weenie. Btw if you twist the chinelle a little more before tying in the tail on those green weenies the chinelle will twist around itself and not be an open loop.

I wass wondering if the drying out was a possibility and headed to the local fly shop and bought another package of CDC. Same problem, on and off. I was trying to size the feather to the hook, and was using what I thought were longer feathers, but will certainly try both of your suggestions.